September 6, 2009

Moving Together in the SPIRIT

"A Quaker Church"

Sermon - September 6, 2009

September 6, 2009
First Friends Meeting
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
‘Thou Shalt Celebrate!’
Doug Gwyn

It’s exciting to feel the mood of celebration grow around here week by week, as we approach our Bicentennial celebration. We have a great weekend planned and I hope you’ll be part of it. Now, it must be admitted, Quakers are not known for their celebrations. The old expression, “sober as a Quaker,” exists for a reason. Traditionally, Friends were known for their grave countenance, their painstaking moral circumspection, their carefully maintained distance from the frivolities of “the world’s people.” Recently, we were looking at photographs of some of our early members. The word ‘celebration’ didn’t come to mind. ‘America’s Most Wanted’ did. These were men you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark meetinghouse.

But I must say, in the nearly six years I’ve been here, First Friends is the most celebrational meeting I’ve ever known. We greet newcomers warmly and with genuine interest. We celebrate new members and new babies. This morning after worship, we will celebrate with Mary Elizabeth Long her 90th birthday. Pumpkinfest, The Hanging of the Greens. Why, we’ve managed to turn even Lent into a celebration of our fellowship with the Catholic Community. This meeting is blessed with an infectious sense of affirmation, inclusiveness, and joy. I thank God for it and pray we never lose it.

It reminds me of the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek. Zorba has an unquenchable life-force in him. He latches onto an Englishman visiting the isle of Crete. The Englishman asks him if he’s married. Zorba replies, “Wife, children, house – the full catastrophe.” At one point, the Englishman is concerned about causing trouble in the village where they’re staying. Zorba answers, “Trouble? Life is trouble!” Finally, at the end, after their business venture ends literally in shambles, as the two of them stand utterly defeated in the wreckage. Then, without explanation, Zorba begins dancing.

The gift of celebration is not limited by circumstances. It comes easier in times of peace and prosperity. But sometimes we find ourselves celebrating under real hardship. I think of Paul and Silas, singing songs of praise while sitting in chains in a prison – and after being severely beaten with rods – and before they are miraculously released. I think of the two disciples of Jesus giving thanks around the table with a stranger in the village of Emmaus – after they have lost their teacher Jesus – and before they recognize him in the stranger. Celebration, praise, thanksgiving – these can give us the eyes to see blessings we haven’t recognized, and to receive guidance we would never imagine otherwise.

In the passage Matt just read, the ancient Israelites are commanded to celebrate. The Book of Deuteronomy is a collection of the laws, supposedly given by Moses just before the Israelites cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land. In this passage, Israel is commanded, after they have entered the Promised Land, and after they begin growing crops, they should bring a portion of the first harvest to the priest as a thank-offering to the Lord. This probably wasn’t meant to be just a one-time commandment, but to be observed every year. Every year, the Israelites would come before their local priest and say “Today I declare to the Lord that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” Every year was to be like the first year. Every year was to be filled with a sense of deliverance, of wonder and thanksgiving. Every year, Israel was to recount the story of the wanderings of Abraham, the captivity and oppression in Egypt, and the liberation of the Lord out of bondage, and the deliverance into this land flowing with milk and honey. Remembering the story is crucial to celebration. As Christians, we remember the gospel, we savor the stories and teachings of Jesus. It reminds us who we are and whose we are.

So at this time of our Bicentennial celebration, we are taking time to retell our story. The books at Lincoln and Barbara Blake have assembled and written for us are labors of love – a great deal of labor, out of a great deal of love. These are great gifts to us – they will help us savor the stories and cherish the people who make up who we are, and whose we are. And if we go back to our first founders 200 years ago, we discover that they were wanders too. Recently, Tim lent me the memoir of one of his ancestors, Henry Hoover. The Hoovers left North Caroline in 1801. They ventured westward in faith, not knowing just where they would resettle. They joined with the Quaker Smiths and Coxes and sojourned in several places over the course of five years, before settling here in 1806. Native peoples lived nearby, but they experienced no violence or troubles with them. That may be partly because they were recognized as Quakers. The story of William Penn – the Quaker, a white man you could trust – had spread westward among Native peoples to this area and beyond. Quakers settling here probably benefited from Penn’s fame. They also felt obliged to honor and continue Penn’s example. It was part of their story, part of who they were, and whose they were.

The commandment of the Lord continues. After you have retold the story of your deliverance, “Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.” Thou shalt celebrate – that’s an order! But not just among yourselves. Include the Levites and the aliens among you. Now, the Levites were the tribe of priests in Israel. They led the worship and taught the people the laws of Moses and the story of Israel. They had no land, so they depended on the other eleven tribes for their food. The aliens were those who were completely disenfranchised, people who were not Israelites but lived in the territories of Israel. Some were traders and merchants, others were slaves and servants, some were just sojourning for a while. But they were invited to the party too. Deuteronomy repeatedly commands Israel to remember, you once were aliens too – you once were wanderers and sojourners – you once were slaves in Egypt. You must remember that hard experience, so you may do better by the poor, displaced and disenfranchised among you now.

So it’s fitting that, with our Bicentennial approaching, First Friends has taken the lead among churches in Richmond in starting Open Arms Ministries. This is an interfaith venture to respond better to the poor, displaced and disenfranchised in our community. Open Arms Ministries is being underwritten for two years with money from our Foundation. It’s now entering its second year. Les Williams, from our own Meeting, did the early, path-breaking work on this project. And from sitting on his support committee, I know there was a lot of uncertainty along the way, groping forward, wandering in the wilderness. All really fresh starts involve some of this. And now, Les and Stephanie and Deepmala have moved to North Carolina. (I guess that’s our Bicentennial gift back to North Carolina, two centuries after the Hoovers left). So it’s been a summer of uncertainty for Open Arms.

But just this week, the Open Arms Board approved Judy Jackson to continue Les’s pioneering work. I want to thank Lincoln Blake and Jim Sizelove for their work with Open Arms. And especially Wayne Copenhaver, who has kept alive our outreach to Richmond’s poor since we moved ten years ago to this more privileged part of Richmond. This is part of who we are, and whose we are. Maybe we should consider Open Arms Ministries part of our Bicentennial celebration. It’s a new and creative way to share God’s blessings with poor, the outcast, and displaced among us. May we continue to celebrate, next weekend, next year, and for another hundred years. Let us celebrate who we are, whose we are, and for what larger purposes we are here. It’s not just about us. It’s the joy and wonder of being part of something far beyond us in time, in space, and in God’s boundless, redeeming love.

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